


Do Not Go Gentle

by dustlines



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Season/Series 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-03 16:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10970970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustlines/pseuds/dustlines
Summary: Sam doesn't know how they're going to get past this.Especially Dean, without Cas.





	Do Not Go Gentle

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for canon character death (not graphic).
> 
> Dedicated to my best friend, Tommy. I miss you every day.

* * *

 

As morning approaches, bringing faded light to a dew-covered world, the antichrist's son won't stop staring at Dean and Cas through the kitchen window. Even sitting at a table several feet away from him, Sam feels the intensity of that focus like a rubber band around his chest, squeezing just tightly enough to make breathing difficult.

Jack, as the antichrist's son insists on being called, is quietly eating a bowl of apple cinnamon instant oatmeal with a green, plastic baby spoon that is entirely too small for his adult-sized mouth, and his legs are fully bare, only a long, buttoned flannel shirt covering him to about mid-thigh.

"What’s wrong with them?" Jack asks about Dean and Cas, his head tilted to the side. His voice is breathy and thick, claustrophobic like an echo trapped in a cave. There's a faint, assessing glow to his eyes, golden glitter passing through irises shifting enough to appear nearly liquid, and his breathing is unnaturally slow, deep, and even. No matter where he stands, the sunlight seems to always catch him, making his skin flash and glimmer like metal.

Sam isn't sure where to begin.

Awkwardly trying to use his own tiny, red plastic spoon to bring banana nut oatmeal to his lips, Sam has to take a few, steadying breaths before responding, "Dean's upset."

Jack drifts past the windows, beginning to quietly pace in front of them. "And the other?" he asks. Around him seems to be carried a subtle, strange scent, like old honey wine, or like water from a vase of flowers that have been out one day too many, like a mostly sweet smell that is just on the edge of souring. "Sam?" he continues, sounding almost unsettled as he repeats, "And the other?"

Sam still can't look out the windows to where Cas' dead body is lying motionless in the dirt, his stabbed heart facing upwards while Dean sits beside him atop a burn scar on the earth that's in the shape of a giant, badly-shredded wing. It's been hours since Cas was fatally attacked, and then their mother was torn from them -- hell, and Jack's mother, too -- but Sam is still trying to calm the wild, terrified tremor of his own pulse.

"Sam," Jack insists, his voice disruptive like a sharp rock being dropped into a still pool. Around his thighs and around his sleeves, his shirt is starting to flutter, caught up in an invisible energy. "Explain?"

Sam squeezes his eyes shut with a jagged inhale, trying to lessen their pain by rubbing them briefly. Through the pain, he reminds himself again how delicate the situation is, how easy it is to influence a brand new mind -- especially one as powerful as the one before him -- and not always for the better.

"Sam," Jack starts again, his jaw tight and his eyes wide, but Sam interrupts him.

"Cas died." Just saying it out loud makes Sam's vision blur around the edges, and makes his hand shake a little around its tiny red spoon. Cas had prepared so many things in this house for a child's arrival, but so little for an adult. Kelly had had whatever she needed, but only enough for her. Looking around, it had become immediately clear that Cas had not made any effort to prepare for his own needs in this house, either. Perhaps Cas had known somehow, even if subconsciously, that he would die protecting this strange, luminous, barefoot nephillim before Sam.

"Dean is _very_ upset," Jack comments, and it takes Sam a moment to realize that Jack is not repeating him, but correcting him, simply by adding the word "very" to Sam's earlier statement.

From where he's sitting, Sam can't see the ground outside, but he can see above it, where a cloudy sunrise is painting the lake by the house in shades of corals, blues, and grays. Somewhere below his current field of vision, he knows Dean is out there, clutching at Cas' face in the retreating shadows, begging for him to come back, just one more time.

Eyes burning, Sam blinks away the threat of tears, choosing to turn his eyes instead to the inside of a neon purple cup as he drinks a few sips of milk from it.

"You're right," Sam says, when he thinks he can talk properly again. He's wrong, his voice hoarse from a painful combination of grief, fear, and that suffocating power Jack doesn't seem to realize he's emitting. Sam takes another sip of his milk, the only drink in the fridge other than a half-full, filtering water pitcher, and softly says into the cup, "Dean is very upset."

This causes Jack to stop pacing before the window, to stand still on the wood floor in his bare feet, and to tilt his head to the side, as though listening.

_Must be a universal angel thing, the head tilt_ , Sam thinks, and then his chest aches, and he starts wondering if the tension in the air might have little to do with Jack at all.

"Castiel was supposed to care for me," Jack says quietly. "I was told this." The strange, echoing nature of his voice has been softening, the more he hears from Sam how voices are supposed to sound. He seems to learn relatively fast, but in many ways is still somewhat childlike.

Sam's chair creaks as he stands up, as does the table when he leans a palm on the rough surface to help him stand. On top of everything else, his body is unsteady from a night of missed sleep.

"He tried to," Sam says as soothingly as he can, given how rough around the edges and battered he feels. Before him, Jack stands stock still, golden eyes still swirling as he watches Dean grieving over Cas through the kitchen window. Sam continues, "And I... I know that Cas wanted to be there for you."

Now that he's standing, Sam can see the ground outside, where Dean is sitting cross-legged in the dirt beside Cas. He is not facing him anymore, but is still leaning a hip against Cas' side and reaching back to lay a closed fist atop Cas' hands, which Dean had folded at some point in the night over Cas' sternum. All of Dean's energy seems to have left him, his mouth having exhausted all pleas and his head and shoulders bowed low. The morning looks chilly, but Dean doesn't seem to feel it.

Jack makes a soft, peculiar sound from deep within his throat, like a bird clearing its throat. Sam only notices now the occasional chirp of songbirds outside the window, greeting the morning of a world that has not ended after all, though parts of it have. Jack turns to look at Sam with those piercing, luminous eyes, and time itself seems to soften around the edges.

"More oatmeal," Jack says, thrusting his bowl out towards Sam, who blinks a few times while coming out of his own, depressing thoughts.

"More oatmeal, what?" Sam says, only to feel almost immediate horror that he had instinctively said that.

Apparently unphased, Jack's head tilts again to the side, his golden eyes wide and momentarily vacant, a sign of inner thought.

"More oatmeal, please," Jack corrects himself after a pause, allowing Sam a moment of intense relief that the son of the antichrist can apparently learn polite behavior. Possibly, Sam's expectations about the world could use some work.

"Yeah, um, I can do that." Clearing his throat, Sam takes the offered bowl from Jack's slim, outstretched hand, and then goes over to the open box of oatmeal packets on the counter. "You want more of the same, or a different flavor?"

Jack doesn't respond immediately, and when Sam turns to see why, he finds Jack's eyes are slightly more lit, his head still in that nearly-permanent tilt and his mouth now open slightly with what seems like a sense of wonder.

"There is more than one flavor?" Jack gasps, very softly. His voice, at first echoing, is nearly normal now, convincing enough to seem almost like the voice of a child, despite his adult form.

"Um..." Still trying to avoid looking out the window to the depressing reality outside, Sam glances into the oatmeal box to see which flavors are still left. He's not sure if Jack is surprised to hear oatmeal _specifically_ comes in different flavors, or that more than one flavor exists in the world at all, but as he's wary of sending a newborn nephillim on a wild tasting spree, Sam merely swallows the pain in his throat and says, "There's some maple and brown sugar. I can make that."

Jack continues to look at him, golden eyes still a little wide. "Does that also... taste of apples?" he asks slowly, as though unsure he is using the right words, and is actually... becoming anxious about that.

_He is so obviously powerful_ , Sam thinks, _but he is also so very new._ Jack's easily bewildered mannerisms are distractingly like Cas's sometimes were when Sam and Dean had first met him, and that's... agonizing for Sam to think about right now, so he clamps that thought down and refuses to consider any deeper comparisons, even as the one he'd already come to causes a burning, tight pain in his chest, since he will never see Cas live up to those comparisons ever again.

Through vision blurring with the threat of tears, Sam manages a small smile, even though it quakes at the edges. "No, it tastes different, but it's still good. I mean, a lot of people think so, at least."

"...Good," Jack murmurs, seeming less in agreement than in simple contemplation, like he's trying to figure the concept out. His forehead crinkles slightly, and he looks back out the window. The glass reflects the light of his eyes, right beside the rising sun.

Sam runs a hand through his unwashed hair, worrying about Jack's obsessive focus on both Dean's grieving form and the dead body of their best friend beside him. Sam has to call on his hunter's instincts just to steady his hands as he prepares a fresh bowl of oatmeal with the filtered water from the pitcher in the fridge.

"I cannot change this," Jack abruptly says, seemingly directly into Sam's ear, and Sam startles away from the microwave he's placed Jack's oatmeal in, because he can see that Jack has moved no closer, and is still standing stoically before the window, his breath throwing fog and reflected light across it. Either Jack can throw his voice verbally, or else he'd spoken directly into Sam's mind.

"I..." Sam swallows down a ragged breath, trying not to choke on his own tongue. "I didn't expect you to."

Still looking into the rising sunlight outside, Jack straightens his head and then tilts it in the opposite direction, squinting hard at Cas' fallen form. The glow under Jack's skin seems to move, traveling as if by blood throughout his entire body, flushing his limbs, his chest, and then finally his eyes with golden light, before that light fades to just a slight shimmer in his irises.

"I brought death," Jack finally says, both softly and spoken aloud. A moment later, he tilts his head back to the usual side and then adds, while frowning at Cas' distant, lifeless body, "The one who loved me died."

Sam feels his legs weaken beneath him, so great is the force of reality that hits him then. He opens his mouth to say... something, anything, but his mouth is too dry to speak. When the microwave beeps loudly behind him, he startles away from it.

The sound also draws Jack's attention, and he sways sideways to face it. In the sunlight now pouring more brightly into the room, Jack is once again glowing noticeably, a subtle, golden shimmer covering him in a way that seems not to come from the surface of his skin, but like there is a light buried somewhere deeper in him, shining through. Even the air around him seems to be losing its slightly sour tinge, a flowery, pleasant scent like beeswax taking its place. Whatever is causing this, Jack doesn't seem to be aware of it.

Watching Jack glow brighter as the sun lifts ever higher in the sky, Sam finds himself thinking, _this is the being Cas died trying to protect_. Sam glances at Dean's hunched over form outside, then Sam thinks further to himself, _well, maybe not the_ only _one_.

Sam swallows tightly, his eyes once again blurring. Numbly, he pulls the second bowl of oatmeal out of the microwave, bringing it over to Jack in a small gust of sweet, maple and brown sugar-scented air.

"Can you wait here for a bit?" Sam asks this brand new being, who is getting more golden with every passing minute, like the sun is rising through him. "I think I've got pants in the car you could use."

Jack only shrugs his eyebrows, then returns to looking out the window. Perhaps, Sam is starting to suspect, Jack is only watching Dean and Cas because he has to face this way in order to see the sun. Normally, Sam thinks he'd be trying to figure out if he's right, but he is simply too tired today to get there, so he just swallows down the pit of pain in his throat, hopes the light is not a harbinger of doom, and then turns to leave before his grief becomes too visible.

"Thank you for the flavors," Jack calls out, just as Sam grips the doorknob and begins to open the door.

It hurts to talk, to breathe, and to even exist, but Sam does his best to smile weakly over his shoulder and say to this shimmering, potentially deadly, oatmeal-eating, probably overwhelmingly powerful nephillim who is also the son of Satan, "You're welcome."

* * *

 

Dean doesn't get up from the dirt beside Cas' fallen body when Sam walks up to check on them on the way to the car. He barely even flinches when Sam kneels on the other side of Castiel's body to check with numb fingertips if a pulse has miraculously come back into the smooth, cold skin of Castiel's neck. Finding nothing, Sam lifts his gaze to the back of his brother's head, because Dean won't meet his eyes. He doesn't ask if Dean has seen any signs of Cas possibly ressurecting, as it's pretty clear there haven't been any.

"Cas," Sam whispers, so quietly it almost can't be heard over the sounds of insects and birds waking up all around them. He pats the familiar, tan fabric covering Cas' shoulder, then Cas' cheek, then Cas' shoulder again with a trembling hand, all the while feeling his face grow hot. "No, Cas," Sam says even softer, hardly any louder than his own breath. Feeling useless and exhausted, Sam puts his forehead down against Cas' forehead, his shoulders starting to shake as he realizes how cold Cas is. Tears burst from his eyes, and to keep them from leaking onto Cas, Sam finds he has to almost immediately lift his face away and then just sit there, palming at the liquid pooling up under his eyes. On Cas' other side, Dean's breathing hitches abruptly.

"If I hadn't been standing in front of him -- " Dean blurts out, a slight shine in his eyes catching the sunlight through the clouds. He blinks rapidly, then swallows, taking a deep, unsteady breath before he can say, "Maybe he could have dodged, ducked, some... something..."

"No, Dean," Sam says, and his voice definitely sounds worse off than Dean, even if he knows he isn't. He's just better at showing it. "You can't start doing that." Now that tears have been allowed to leave his eyes, Sam finds it hard to make them stop. Rubbing at them, he says, "This wasn't on you."

Dean looks at him, a bitter, upset smile flickering at the corners of his lips. He doesn't believe Sam, and shakes his head to prove it. The smile wobbles off, replaced almost immediately by despair. Before Sam can say anything, Dean tears a rock from the ground and hurls it into the lake. As it splashes into the water, Dean opens his mouth and yells at the top of lungs, so loudly that it takes several seconds for the lake to stop echoing it back. Breathing hard, Dean drags a muddy hand up over his face and into his hair, while his other hand reaches behind him to clutch Cas' folded hands.

"Dean," Sam stammers, but Dean only yells a second time, even louder, so that Dean's entire body folds downward under the force of it. Birds around them go into a panic, flying out of their trees, and insects go quiet in shock. Sam just sits there, surprise rendering him mute. He's not sure if he prefered Dean's silence just a few moments ago, or this. Either way, he doesn't quite know how to respond. He holds his hands up as if to be ready to touch Dean's arm, or his back, but Dean's entire being seems to scream not to do that, so Sam just keeps his hands awkwardly raised.

Dean pants for a few seconds, then takes another deep breath to fill his lungs as far as they'll go before he shouts even louder than before, louder than Sam has ever heard Dean shout, not even into the face of any demon, angel, or demigod, hard enough that Dean's back visibly shakes from the effort and the whites of his eyes turn a deeper, bloodshot red. The ground seems to vibrate, little pebbles shifting in their piles of dirt and plants. Sam's ears pop, and then start ringing shrilly.

Bent over his own lap, Dean keeps scrubbing dirt into his own hair, probably not even realizing he's doing it. He just keeps his other hand holding onto Cas' hands, even if he can't seem to look at him.

"D-Dean," Sam repeats, trying to keep himself from outright breaking down. He barely gets out of the way in time for Dean to slide downwards, burying his face in the unmoving place between Cas' chest and shoulder, both of his arms coming up to wrap around Cas' neck, as if sheer force of will alone could protect Cas from what has already occurred.

"Damn it," Dean whispers, so muffled by Cas' coat that Sam can barely hear him say it.

Cas, as he has been for hours, only lies there, still no life in him at all, his eyes closed softly above the shaking plateau of Dean's hair.

Palming at his eyes even harder, Sam takes several painful, unsteady breaths, then just has to get away. He stumbles up from the ground, remembering abruptly as he sees the glowing nephillim staring at them all through the windows of the house that he came out here to get spare clothes from the Impala's trunk.

"Shit," Sam hisses, then crouches on unsteady legs beside Dean. "D-Dean," he says, partially holding himself up by clutching Dean's shoulder. "Dean, I need the car keys. I'm gonna just... grab..." Receiving no resistance, Sam reaches into the jacket pocket he knows Dean keeps his keys in. Dean doesn't move in the slightest, except to curl his arms tighter around Cas' neck as Sam pulls the keys free with a hand he knows is shaking too hard to pick a lock with. Once he has the keys, Sam pushes himself up using Dean's shoulder as leverage and then heads for the Impala.

Insects are nervously starting to sing again as Sam walks out of the burned shadow of Cas' wings, feeling dizzy the whole way. He starts wondering if Dean can even handle burying Cas, and if so, where? And when? Everything is a blur. Cas has died before, but they've never really had a body linger in death like this before, so it feels... horribly final. And then, on top of that, there's also mom, trapped in that other world with Lucifer himself... and even... even Crowley is gone.

Sam can barely track where his hands are going when he digs into the Impala's trunk and liberates the first pair of jeans and clean underwear he can find, not even bothering to zip shut the musty canvas bag he'd taken it from. He takes the long way back so he can check on Dean again, holding the clothes over one arm while touching Dean's overly warm back with his free hand. Dean's not crying, but he's definitely holding back at least another gut-wrenching scream or two, for his ribcage keeps expanding under the force of his heavy breathing.

Sam doesn't expect Dean to talk again, which is why he's surprised when Dean reacts when Sam touches his back, even if he won't pull his arms away from Cas, only grumbling into Cas’ chest with a voice he's screamed raw, "Wh...why's the adult-shaped baby staring so damn much?"

Sam swallows, but his throat is so dry and tight now that almost nothing goes down it. "Jack is..." Sam falters, then licks his lips to try -- unsuccessfully -- to wet them a little. He lowers his voice and continues, "I think... I think he feels guilty. He knows about his mom."

"He glows like... like cartoon nuclear waste," Dean coughs out, with obvious effort. Yelling seems to have hurt his throat. "Did Cas... did Cas..." Dean has to take a breath, and then, with a voice muffled by Cas' clothes, he grits out, "Sam, just tell me this wasn't for nothing."

His hand still spread broadly across his brother's back to ground him, Sam isn't sure how to respond. He turns to glance at Jack, and Jack looks back with wide, scared eyes through the kitchen window and sort of... blinks. Like he's also unsure. Or maybe just like he's trying to work out why it takes this long to collect a pair of pants.

"I... I don't think he wants to hurt anyone," Sam says, because it's the only thing he's at least kind of sure of right now. "He even says... he even says 'please' _and_ 'thank you.' I think... I think he's just a kid, Dean. A powerful kid, who... who doesn't really look like a kid, but... still a kid."

Dean huffs a little, but otherwise doesn't move. "What the hell," Dean hisses, his voice still hoarse, "where'd he learn that?"

Sam hesitates, but eventually decides to just go ahead and brush a quick hand through Dean's hair to get some of the dirt out of it. "I don't know, Dean," Sam says, feeling more than a little disturbed when his act of concern, the sort which is usually immediately shoved away by Dean, instead receives no reaction at all. Accidentally looking at Castiel's still face above Dean's head for a second, Sam takes a startled, slow breath before he can say, "but... but he needs pants, so I have to bring these."

Dean doesn't respond for a long moment, but then, after a shaky breath, he says, "Sam, you've spent hours in the company of a glowing man without pants."

The joke is a weak one, and Sam doesn't want to point out where Dean spent the night, so he just doesn't respond to it. "It's fine," Sam says instead. "I let him borrow a shirt."

As Sam struggles to keep his breathing steady, he realizes uncomfortably that Dean is doing the same. Around them, the air has a mostly earthy, damp smell, but if Sam breathes too deeply, there is also charcoal, and a faint hint of burned ozone underneath, like a lightning strike took place here, instead of the death of someone they love.

Sam grits his teeth, then shakes his head to clear it. "I... should get back to Jack," Sam whispers, because he suddenly doesn't know if he can talk any louder. "Um. Take... take your time out here. I'm fine in there. He's just a kid. A... shiny kid, but still a..." Realizing Dean's not really listening, Sam tapers off.

Dean just stays where he is, head still buried against the lifeless chest of someone he'd clearly never been brave enough to attempt this with while he was still alive. When he sighs, it's shaky and coarse, and Sam takes that as a sign to leave him alone for now, because this is definitely not how Dean has ever wanted to be seen, and it's way worse because Dean apparently can't even control it enough to hide it.

As Sam walks back to the house that Cas had rented, using his sleeve to wipe away more stubborn tears that are falling freely down his cheeks now, he feels the rubber band tension in his chest grow even tighter, knowing now that Jack has nothing to do with causing the feeling. Still, Jack's golden eyes follow Sam's walk all the way back to the door, and remain fixed on him when Sam approaches him to offer him more clothes.

The day before had sucked so bad, Sam thinks. Every victory had been framed by even worse losses. Sam doesn't know how they're going to get past this.

Especially Dean, without Cas.

* * *

 

Dean sits outside for another hour, just staying there with Cas under the rising sun as Sam forces his emotions back into a tolerable shape so he can figure out how to babysit a nephillim.

Doing so actually ends up not being too difficult: a deck of playing cards and a bag of microwave popcorn, and they're playing an easygoing round of go fish, even though Jack keeps expressing confusion about what fish are. Dean's favorite skinny jeans are baggy around Jack's ankles as he quietly continues to glow brighter under the increasing sunlight, though he'd taken off his shirt as soon as the pants were on, and now there's a pulsing, golden glow in his chest where normally a heart would be. Sam thinks maybe Jack just likes the sun, like a cat basking under its rays. At least... he's hoping it's something harmless like that. He's not sure how hard he'd bother fighting against any further catastrophes right now, if the light isn't harmless.

Somewhere through their third, somewhat unorganized game, a soft, misty rain starts to fall outside, each droplet barely heavy enough to bead, only heavy enough to leave small bumps on every smooth surface. Through the window Sam has pulled his chair closer to so that he can better see what's going on outside, Sam watches Dean shrug off his coat and spread it over Cas' face and chest, shielding Cas' body from the rain even though Cas can no longer feel it.

Finding it hard to focus on the cards in his hands, Sam rubs at his eyes, then finds Jack has once again stopped looking at the cards in his hands and is looking outside again, just like Sam is. Cautiously, Sam lowers his cards, feeling their frayed edges softly brush against his palms. There's a tiny, golden speckle of light reflecting against the window, even though the sun has risen high enough in the sky to be above the house, and even though Jack is sitting far enough away from the glass to avoid casting a reflection where Sam is seeing one.

Sam looks at Jack again, who tilts his head and furrows his brow as if hearing something odd, and then Sam looks past him, where the reflection of light on the kitchen window seems to be reflecting right over Dean's distant body. Sam leans to the left, and then the right, trying to see where the reflection is coming from.

Putting a hand over Jack's cards to get his attention, Sam points his other hand at the window and asks, "Is that you?"

Shimmering in his own way, Jack looks where he has been directed to look and then simply says, "Not that."

A moment later, Sam sees Dean stand up for the first time in hours, his hands held up before him. The reflected light on the window is following Dean's hands, the color of it both blue and gold, and Dean is looking around in bewilderment.

Sam bangs his knee on the table as he surges up from his chair. His brother... is _glowing_.

Jack doesn't move from his seat as Sam drops his cards in a flutter, running outside as fast as he can even before he hears Dean begin to shout out his name.

Something's happening, and Sam has no idea what it is, but despite himself, there’s a traitorous part of his mind that Sam can’t seem to stop from daring to light up and begin to feel...

a potentially foolish,

and dangerous,

unfounded

sort of

_hope_.

* * *

> **Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight  
>  And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way  
>  Do not go gentle into that good night.**
> 
> **-Dylan Thomas**

* * *

  
(2017/5/22)


End file.
